You don’t need to power everything in an emergency.

But if you get your heating and cooking with electricity and you’re in an environment that NEEDS cooling…

I use 10kwh/day average. But that includes power-hungry “steam” washer/dryer and dishwasher, none of which I need for a few days outage.

I’m lucky to have gas water heater and gas steam boiler. The boiler needs about 10 watts on standby and max 25 operating (ecobee, damper, auto-fill, etc.)

I’ve already rigged it with a cord and if there’s an emergency I put it on a little 300W/400 WH Jackery over night (will run it for close to a day) so I don’t have to run a generator. I plan on rigging up some kind of UPS with a few days capacity though.

I just bought a 1000W/1kWh gently-used Jackery for $450 from a neighbor who upgraded to a 2000Plus. That’ll run the fridge over night.

The Jackeries have great general utility and are both very portable.

Just got a 3000W 120V portable generator and that’s all I need for everything else. Stove top is gas, takes a match or lighter. Oven is electric I don’t need to bake cookies during an outage. Air fryer, toaster, microwave are fine on the generator, one at a time.

I’d eventually like one of those expandable battery systems with a 10 circuit automatic switch and load-shift during peak hours. The prices are coming down rapidly. Ecoflow looks good but plenty of competition coming.

Not only that depending on how old you might get something much more powerful in a little fanless case that uses way less power. Especially if ARM architecture. Though there are decent Intel chips targeted t this market.

How power hungry is that old PC, though?

There are about a zillion options many/most smart switch lines have a battery remote that can typically be paired with any load(s).

The classic OG is Insteon. Their mini-remote screws to the wall surface and add a screwless Decora frame I think it comes-with?) is indistinguishable from a standard Decora switch.

I’ve even mounted one next to a single-gang box and put a two-gang screwless plate over it.

But you got those weird Aussie switches or something and Insteon isn’t popular any more, though the company got saved by then skin of it’s teeth.

Sonoff Zigbee dongle.

So OP comfortable with phoning-home to China though.

Cause they believe in some conspiracy theory.

Because Zigbee, Zwave, BLE, and various proprietary RF data transmission schemes aren’t WiFi.

Are you sure the unnamed devices weren’t using Ethernet?

Didn’t you have in-wall devices for this?

Wait’ll you see the version from Temu!

“Chinese version from Ali” prolly means somebody slipped the plans to their cousin at another factory.

They did the best they could and used the parts they could buy the cheapest.

https://www.kidde.com/home-safety/en/us/homesafe-collection/

These are “interconnected” using RF which is now acceptable by code at least it’s when I checked with San Diego Fire Marshall. But YMMV. SD has interconnect (only within each apartment) and dual-power requirement in high-rise dwellings.

If there’s an interconnect dongle for old hardwire-connect detectors, you’d find it on/linked from above link.

They all have a 10 year mandated lifetime anyway. Maybe just replace all now?

Getting notified is nice.

Getting the FD notified is nicer.

Is OP going to carry the Raspberry Pi around with them to City X and City Y?

I’d imagine there are weather apps that can do this.

OP only wants a notification?

https://www.weather.gov/enterprise/sw-alerts-app-1e

Smart plus ironically have phantom draw, though.

You’re good though, if your smart plug has less phantom draw than the thing you’re trying to stop the phantom draw from.

I once had a neighbor who would set up a camera on his kitchen counter when away on long trips. Pointing at the sink bowl. To detect backups. Which were frequent in our building. And he lived on the lowest floor.

Better than coming home to brown sludge.

Too bad for the poster with the water leak concerns.

They would only find out once the water starts pouring out under the doors.

Then it’s a useless system, though what’s it going to do for you?

If you’re concerned about living alone, and want cameras for security, first of all, you should have a comprehensive security system, and it should be professionally monitored, which means that there does need to be outside access .

The monitoring service will attempt to contact you, and then contact police or fire as appropriate.

alarm systems, generally have off, away, and home modes. In home mode indoor cameras should be disabled.

If you have to ask us….

Customers networks, and then OP might be found liable. Especially if they had touted security.

The chances of them being secure are less than zero.

I’d have a really good liability policy if you’re planning on selling them and then be careful of your representations

companies that do the successfully go visit the factory themselves, and have experts evaluate product, safety, and security.

Even so, you have to constantly monitor for changes. Multiple factories produce the same product and there’s little respect for intellectual property the Chinese companies rip each other off left and right.

So the quality from a given exporter could radically change overnight.